Jun Ledesma
Strange things had happened these last few months. The eastern seaboard in Mindanao facing the Pacific Ocean had been rocked by a series of earthquakes from volcanic eruptions. While these did not cause so much destruction these caused panic across Caraga and Davao regions and even up to General Santos City.
Not long after, schools of fish in strange abundance swam near the beachlines. Fisherfolks need not use fish nets as these were cumbersome. They only have to scoop the fishes with pails.
Recently a deep sea dwelling giant lapu-lapu, locally known as “kugtong” surfaced and was feasted on by fishermen. Kugtong is so huge that even if it is a slow swimmer it can swallow man who by accident is trapped in rocks and boulders in the ocean bed which is home to this strange marine giant.
Last week, a swarm of cray fish crawled to grassy drylands. This was posted on Facebook and said to have happened in Siquijor Island.
For the last two weeks many towns in Davao de Oro, Davao Oriental and Davao del Norte including Agusan del Sur were ravaged by rampaging floods brought about by incessant rains which innundated infrastructures that rendered many isolated barangays unreachable. Highways were either under water or covered by landslides.
In Masara, a mining village in Maco, Davao de Oro, the mountain literally moved and buried houses including service buses of the mining firm operating in the barangay. Residents were caught unprepared. Casualties are still mounting as I write this piece for there are dozens more who are reported missing.
Relief and rescue operations from the national government came quite late. When it did the relief items bore the names of politicians from the leadership of the House of Representatives and their local confreres. Of the national leaderships it was only Vice President Sara Duterte who personally inspected the barangays severely hit by floods and cascading mud flows. Sen. Bong Go also sent a team to distribute relief goods.
It is something inherent to these officials to rush to sites of disasters to help bringing with them truckloads of relief items and teams of medical and rescue teams. In the case of a storm surge spawned by Typhoon Yolanda that claimed more than 10,000 lives in Tacloban, Leyte, Davao City Mayor was the first to arrive. My brother, Dr. Danilo Ledesma, the medico-legal of Davao was among the five medical teams who rendered medical assistance to hundreds of survivors. On the day they arrived in Tacloban dead bodies of victims of the killer tsunami still littered the streets of Tacloban.
Back to Davao de Oro, It’s noteworthy that former Davao De Oro Gov. Arthur “Chiongkee” Uy waged his own personal crusade, he calls “Bangon Davao de Oro” to help victims of floods get back to their feet. Aside from his own he was able to gather several truckloads of relief items from friends in Tagum and Davao City. His donors begged him not to reveal their names. He recalled that bringing the relief items to affected barangays is in itself a big challenge as barangay and feeder roads were either unpassable due to rampaging floods or the bridges had collapsed and carried away by strong water current.
Even in his retirement the former Chiongkee who is now popularly called “Papa Gov” presently spends his time supervising the allocations of donations to the barangays. “There is so much work to do. Farming communities need assistance as they are starting from scratch”, he told me, adding that he has not seen so much devastation that the unusual weather brought to Davao de Oro.
Calamities cause destructions but in the midst of these disasters emerge leaders but unfortunately shameless opportunists too. So beware of environmental changes and political seasons. Rains are blessings to arid earth but so much rains can literally move mountains and amidst the dire need of people are shameless characters and their who would purchase signatures and votes. (Jun Ledesma)